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I saw on Discovery Health at least 2 years ago a one hour show on just this.
However, they added that it was also because the exposed skin on a circumsized penis becomes thicker and stronger than skin that is covered by a foreskin......making the skin of the exposed head (forgot name) more resistant to any invading substance.

This is bad. What on earth does circumcision do that a .02 cent condom doesn't do, literally, a million times better?

I don't know how they're circumcising in Africa, but most men in the US have a good portion of their very sensitive inner foreskins left yet the US led HIV infection rates for years. Unless they're doing ultra low cuts that remove all inner foreskin, I don't see how circumcision will help.

Yet even then, my brain just reels. What is this telling men? Get circumcised and don't get HIV? I'm not fan of circumcision but believe a man should have a choice in the matter. If you want it, great. If not, great. I fear now that men in Africa from regions where circumcision isn't done will get the idea that condoms are no longer necessary if they get cut. Clearly HIV infection rates are lower in areas which routinely circumcise, but it's no panacea. I'd also love to see a study about multiple partner habits in the circumcising versus non-circumcising areas. The number of partners matters far more in HIV transmission.

Knocking out all your teeth will prevent tooth decay too. Why not do that and just give everyone implants?

If you are not wearing a condom and you penetrate a male or female that has aids, then aids can get into the meatus opening and infect you whether or not you are circumsized. Just another bullshit excuse to bash males that are not circumsized.

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Whoa Nelly. I see a knee jerk reaction to this study forthcoming. There will be evangelicals spreading circumcision thoughout the Third World.

The sad reality is that if they are having sex without condoms they are still at risk of contracting or spreading HIV, irrespective of being circumcised or not. I hope people don't mistake the circumcision as a form of immunity (it's not) and therefore think they can have risk-free unprotected sex once they are circumcised.

This strikes me as being another one of those assertions that circumcision is healthier, somehow.

Without the details of the study, it's hard to determine if their findings mean anything or not. For instance, how did they select subjects? Could all of their sexual practices (and sexual partners) be properly "controlled" in their experiment? Is there something within the population of circumcized males that would make them less likely to be sexually active with multiple partners and hence less likely to contract the illness?

I also noticed that, according to the linked article, that the U.S. National Institutes of Health "ended both trials early and offered circumcision to all men involved in them." Why not educate them on condom use instead? That strikes me as being less intrusive than a surgical procedure and wouldn't give them the false idea that they are immune from contracting the illness if they get circumcized.

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Why not educate them on condom use instead? That strikes me as being less intrusive than a surgical procedure and wouldn't give them the false idea that they are immune from contracting the illness if they get circumcized.

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Humans being what they are NEVER do anything 100% of the time. It's about risk reduction NOT risk elimination. When studies are ended early it's because, in this case, the results are so clear and dramatic that to not offer those not getting the treatment the actual treatment would be denying those the clear benefit of the drug or procedure.

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Sex education messages for young men need to make it clear that &#8220;this does not mean that you have an absolute protection,&#8221; said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, an AIDS researcher and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Circumcision should be used with other prevention methods, he said, and it does nothing to prevent spread by anal sex or drug injection, ways in which the virus commonly spreads in the United States

because each new study that comes out (with more careful controls than the last) shows a less-protecitve effect. One a few years back claimed 8-fold reduction, the Orange Farm study was down to 60% reduction, now these larger ones are round 50% reduction (and with a difference of only 47 men, you can't quote exact percentages like 48 and 53). In this regard it's like parapsychological research.

because circumcision has been touted for every fearful disease for the last 150 years

because already outrageiously exaggerted claimes are being made "the most effective"? More than condoms? I don't think so.

because it's being researched and promoted by some people who have a vested interest in circumcision, come what may.

because they ignore other important means of HIV transmission, such as dirty needles (medical rather than drugs in much of Africa), sex with men, and male to female.

because a number of things just don't stack up: eg, the method they used(in the Orange Farm study) doesn't take off as much mucosa as the US method.

because in many (3rd world) places such as Lesotho and Ethiopia circumcision and AIDS are both rampant.

because while they talk of voluntary adult circumcision, the focus seems to immediately and automatically switch to neonatal, raising big human rights issues.

because "It protects men but it won't protect YOU" is a preposterously mixed message.

because what works in a clinical experiment may very well not work in the field: eg, how much education and counselling are the experimental subjects getting?

because they're promoting it without considering costs and risks.

because we keep getting news items about the wonders of circumcision, and eventually the actual studies, when they're published, make much more modest claims.

I won't actually deny outright that circumcision has ANY protective effect, but excuse me if I don't instantly buy into the idea that we should forget about condoms and start cutting foreskins.

If you use condoms, being circumcised will only make any difference if they break or come off - a much smaller difference. OF COURSE men who think they are protected by being circumcised will be less likely to use condoms. (Even if they don't in this experiment, where they're getting regular counsellling.)

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Cicumcision is turning into the new pregnancy. When my mother was pregnant she was practically force fed liver by the midwives and doctors because it was proven to reduce the risks of something or other, when I was pregnant I was forbidden to eat liver because it was proven to increase the risks of what ever it was it reduced the risks of a few years earlier.

Now my sisters pregnant and she's encouraged to eat it for the same reasons as my mother was.

I'm really starting to doubt anything the so called experts say, because they can only base it on what they've seen so far and they never stick with the same thing for more than a few years, not to mention for everyone 10 doctors saying one thing, there are another 10 saying something else.

When it comes to removing a piece of skin, I seriously believe that you should do it if its what you want, not because of the latest info coming for the meds, who knows what they'll be saying 10years down the line.

despite the controversy, i knew this study was going to cause when I read it a month ago or so, the results really are quite intriguing and do back up what I was saying and everyone was telling me i didnt know what i was talking about in regards to their being increased levels of particular white cells that are more prone to HIV infection.

I wont get into the controversy but its intriguing that they stopped the study early bc the results were so clear. Kind of reminds me when AZT and some of the other antivirals hit the market and they stopped those studies early bc the results were so clear

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I would have to see answers to a whole long list of questions before I place any credence at all in the study:

Are the results based on infant or adult circumcisions? How large are the sample and control groups, and are the samples and controls from sufficiently diverse groups? Over what time period were they studied? How much of the data relied on self-reporting?

In the USA, we have seen rises and falls and rises of HIV infection incidence in various population groups that are not the result of foreskin status, but rather the result of education and sexual practices within those groups.

Meaningful statistics in a study of this nature are so complex, I can't imagine the logistics of collecting the data. If it did involve half of the samples being adult circumcisions, did the researchers find a suitably large number of adult intact men willing to lose their foreskins to participate in the study? Were they able to find a suitably large sample of newborns whose parents were willing to let the researchers decide whether or not to circumcise their children? Were there any cultural/socio-economic/religious differences between the clipped and non-clipped males?

I suppose I will have to review the published findings. Unfortunately, it will have to wait a while, my scientific journal reading list is a bit backlogged.